Mackon's Omakes for Mizuki Stone's Cannonfodder
by Mackon
Summary: These are my Omakes for Mizuki Stone's Transformers Prime AU Cannonfodder, a story about the adventures of a Jet Vehicon that gets left behind on Cybertron before the events in the show. You will get a lot more out these snippets and shorts if you are up to date with Cannonfodder. A marvellous work that is currently archived on Spacebattles dot com.
1. Chapter 1

Omake: This Snippet fits into Mizuki Stone's Cannonfodder during Entry 40 and 41. You can find Cannonfodder in the creative writing archive at Spacebattles dot com.

threads/ canonfodder-charge-of-the-lite-brigade.268567/

**F.U.B.A.R!**

Situation Normal, F# ked Up Beyond All Recognition!

Staring

Patrol Leader Sigma1356 as "F1"

Vehicon Omicron1203 as "F2"

Vehicon Sigma1358 as "F3"

Vehicon Alpha0075 as "F4"

Vehicon Epsilon0548 as "F5"

Section Leader Sigma1361 ... doesn't get a fancy designation.

Vehicon Delta0437 as "R1"

Vehicon Sigma1363 as "R2"

With Special Guest Stars

Salvage

as

"The Enemy Seeker"

and

Lickety Split

as

"The Autobot"

**Earth.**

Eight Vehicon Seekers launch from the shadowed length of the Warship Nemesis into the airless void above the oblivious planet below. As they accelerate away from their base ship they arrange themselves into a double arrowed formation and take course towards the huge bulk of the Decepticon's Space-Bridge. Two cycles later the flight of Seekers plunge into the swirling green energy pool of the active gate and are gone.

**Cybertron.**

"Aaaaargh!" Alpha0075 twisted away from the Null Beam strike, trailing smoke and wreckage from his right gun mount. "Primus forsaken drone!" Cursing aloud at the hostile Seeker arrowing up from the planet's surface to intercept the patrol didn't accomplish a lot, especially since there currently wasn't enough atmosphere to carry sound, but it did relieve a little frustration as Alpha0075 opened the Tactical Comnet sent his ID and reported. "I've been hit."

"What's your status Alpha0075?" Sigma1356 the Vehicon patrol's commanding officer demanded sounding pretty stressed.

Alpha0075 shunted power into his thrusters, fighting against his built up momentum, banking hard to loop back towards his wing mates after his evasive manoeuvres led him far out of formation. "Offensive abilities halved sir, one of my guns is slagged."

"Shake it off Alpha0075 and get back here, do you have visual on Sigma1361?" Sigma1361 was the patrol's second in command, his normal position was leader of the rear element which put the other Vehicon almost alongside Alpha0075 own position as far flank of the forward element. Alpha0075 had seen him get hit an astrosecond before he'd been tagged himself. The Vehicon quickly brought up his last solid contact with the Section Leader and tried to extrapolate the missing officers course while burning some processor capacity tracking radar contacts all the while wondering why the Patrol Leader hadn't done it himself.

The most obvious return in any direction of course was the unshielded Autobot signal racing across Cybertron's surface.

Alpha0075 easily spotted the stricken Section Leader once he knew which direction to look, it wasn't like there was much in the skies of Cybertron. "Affirmative visual on Sigma1361 sir, he's in free-fall, terminal velocity. Nearing the surface, doesn't look good sir." In fact it looked worse than that according to Alpha0075's sensors. Sigma1361 had lost 42% of his mass somewhere, having nearly half your body blown off wasn't very survivable even without what looked to be shaping up as a really impressive crash.

"Scrap!, get back here Alpha0075 NOW! Be aware that communications and targe##bzzzzzzzzz##" Sigma1356's voice dissolved into static and Alpha0075 realised why his Patrol Leader hadn't been scanning for his second in command himself as he ran straight into a ridiculously powerful jamming field. Alpha0075's senses went haywire as false data slammed into just about every sensor he had, only his optics were still tracking at anything close to 100%. Alpha0075 was almost back into the thick of it when he saw the rest of his team split up arching away from each other, most darted towards the enemy Seeker. Positioning themselves to attack from multiple angles, Sigma1356 must have been able to get some orders out to the others despite the jamming.

"_Foolish, your only hope was to fight united_." It didn't seem to bother the enemy either, he still seemed fine broadcasting his creepy damn voice over the supposedly encrypted secure Decepticon channel.

Alpha0075 ignored the taunting and powered on trying to get a decent attack angle on the enemy's alt mode. Which Alpha0075 noted looked uncannily like his own, a different colour scheme, some extra lumps that could be thruster assembles and was a bit bulkier. Alpha0075 could see Sigma1363 was closing in on the traitor from above. The Vehicon figured if he could keep the traitor busy for just a cycle his team mate would be able to get in a good hit.

Alpha0075 managed a single shot from his remaining Energon projector before his target whipped around in an impossible looking manoeuvre and slid out from under his targeting reticule. "SCRAP!" The Decepticon tried to follow but could barely keep the enemy seeker in sight as the imposter whipped around and opened fire on Sigma1363 who had been powering in for his strafing run. Null Beams speared straight into Sigma1363's fuselage before he even got a shot off, shattering armour and ripping the unlucky Mech's internals to confetti. A few hits and the Vehicon was reduced to so much tumbling metal.

Omicron1203 and Sigma1358 the Patrol Leader's wing mechs roared past, thrusters wide open and accelerating for all they were worth, heading straight down towards the Autobot signal.

Alpha0075 clawed his way around again, inertia compensators redlining, he could see Sigma1356 trying to pull up behind the enemy and fell in with Epsilon0548, and Delta0437 who were laying down covering fire for the Patrol Leader.

"_An admirable attempt._" Again with the freaky voice.

Before the Patrol Leader could get a decent shot the bogey abruptly corkscrewed around and dived, chasing after Omicron1203 and Sigma1358.

Alpha0075 plunged after him, naturally falling into formation with Sigma1356, Epsilon0548, and Delta0437 and joining the other three Vehicon's efforts to slag the glitchy fragger. Even pouring on the speed the false Vehicon still managed enough dodges to throw the patrols aim off. Alpha0075 thought he'd put a good hit into a wing but the mouthy freak had a mammoth acceleration advantage and the Vehicons only had moments before he drew out of range of their light Energon cannons.

As the impossible fake Vehicon opened the distance the Unicron spawned jamming faded enough to get a signal through.

"Report!" Sigma1356 barked. "Does anybody have any missiles left?"  
"Racks are empty sir." Delta0437 replied immediately.  
"Negative sir." Epsilon0548.  
"I've barely got guns over here sir." Alpha0075 blurted.  
"Shut up Alpha0075, you can take a Null Beam that might hit someone useful so you're contributing to the cause, what more do you want?"  
"Armour that could take a few hits would be nice sir." Alpha0075 replied before he could stop himself, his gun mount throbbed like an Autobot heavy pounding on his motherboard and it was making him irritable.  
"Shut up Alpha0075! we'll catch up with the slagger in 18 astroseconds unless Omicron1203 and Sigma1358 get him first or the crazy glitch head ploughs into the planet. Spread out and form a pyramid cluster, anchor on me as drag. Get him in a crossfire and fry his diodes!"  
"SIR! YES SIR!" esprit de corps! Vehicons are full of it.

Alpha0075 drew level with Delta0437 and Epsilon0548 adjusting course to stay on the trail of the enemy Seeker. The chasers watched as the enemy fighter closed in on Omicron1203 and Sigma1358 as the two Vehicons arrowed down towards the Autobot.

The Autobot, Alpha0075 could just make out, was a very small and very orange three wheeler and was currently racing down one of the ruined Iacon roadways, heading towards the crumbling necropolis that used to be the Cybertronian capital's spaceport it looked like.

But the Vehicon barely spared the Autobot a glance. They, whoever they were, didn't have any weapon or targeting systems active so could be safely ignored for now. Alpha0075's focus was on the bronze coloured Seeker who had been flying rings around and shooting up the Vehicon's patrol.

The jamming was nearly back to full strength, they were closing in.

Alpha0075 opened fire with his remaining weapon Delta0437 and Epsilon0548 joining right in. They were hitting the fragger! But it didn't seem to be slowing him down at all, he just poured on more speed, chasing down Omicron1203 and Sigma1358.

Everything happened very fast.

The enemy seeker let loose with a barrage of shots at Sigma1358 walking his Null Beams toward the Vehicon then suddenly pulled another one of his impossibly tight turns to catch Omicron1203 off guard and nailed the Vehicon with a single precise shot, the powerful Null Beam blasting off one of Omicron1203's wings and sending him into a tail spin towards the surface. Even as Omicron1203 tumbled from the sky the bronze coloured Seeker pulled up and orientated on the still diving Sigma1358.

"_Admirable but futile._"

Sigma1358 tried to evade but the Null Beams cut into his hull and then speared straight through his body, speared straight through his spark.

Then the bogey was boosting straight back up towards Alpha0075 and the rest of the patrol's survivors!

Alpha0075 kept firing but his target continuously jinked and swerved, ducking out of his line of fire. The Vehicon knew he was getting some hits in but he also knew he wasn't getting enough. Alpha0075 was getting dizzy just trying to keep the mad mech in his sights and had no chance of actually following him as the Bronze seeker suddenly streaked through the centre of his Delta0437's and Epsilon0548's formation and charged straight at the Patrol Leader, showering Sigma1356 with a hail fast low powered shots.

"_It's useless._"

Alpha0075 charged in and saw one of his Energon blasts actually bounce off the other seeker's armour. "oh come on!" then the bronze fighter spun, seemingly almost in place and caught him with two decidedly not low powered beams. The first blew a hole straight through his left wing, severing Energon feeds to his remaining weapon and a third of his thrusters.

Painful? Yes. Crippling? Yes. But all in all Alpha0075 would have been perfectly happy to take that hit and call it a day, it wasn't to be however. The second Null Beam hit. It slammed into Alpha0075's torso and his body armour just disintegrated, shards became shrapnel and sliced into his internal structure, every system screamed with agonising error messages.

The Vehicon blacked out for an astosecond his processor overwhelmed as he fell away from the battle.

Alpha0075 came back online still falling, his rudimentary self repair bio-mechanism over clocking as it struggled to get a grip on the massive damage.

The wounded Seeker tried to take stock ... he was so incredibly slagged.

He was leaking Energon from just about everywhere, he was upside down falling towards the ground, none of his manoeuvring thrusters were working and his main jets were so much shredded scrap, oh and he was in more pain than he'd ever dreamed existed and was finding it hard to concentrate.

Alpha0075 transformed hoping he could get some thrusters going in his humanoid form, or at least turn over so he could get some idea of how soon he would kissing Cybertron.

The process, normally too fast to really note, was excruciatingly slow (he could actually hear his T-Cog groaning as it strained) and not too much to Alpha0075's surprise it was also very very painful.

... and then his left hand fell off.  
"Unicron's sodding great moustache!''

"_It ends._"  
"And you can shut up as well you loon!"

Alpha0075 was pleasantly surprised to find that he could indeed get the thrusters in his feet working, at least a little bit. He put as much power into them as he could, slowing himself down and even giving himself some control enough to orientate and stabilize himself standing up in relation to the surface ... of course they also ignited the Energon leaking all over his body as well.

"And Now I'm On Fire!" He was also getting worryingly close to the ground.


	2. Chapter 2

Omake: This Snippet fits into Mizuki Stone's Cannonfodder straight after Entry 41. You can find Cannonfodder in the creative writing archive at Spacebattles dot com.

threads/ canonfodder-charge-of-the-lite-brigade.268567/

**F.U.B.A.R!**

Situation Normal, F# ked Up Beyond All Recognition!

Part One.

_A lifeless war ravaged maze of twisted metal and glass. Iacon couldn't really be called a city any more, just a wasteland of broken buildings, ruined streets and gutted monuments. Whatever ascetic or logical order it had once claimed long burned and bombed to chaotic ruin._

"**Aaaaaaaaaaaaarrrgh!**" Alpha0075 travelled the last thousand metres to the ground franticly trying to slap the burning Energon away from his open chest cavity with his one remaining hand while desperately scanning for something a bit softer than solid metal to land on.

There wasn't a lot to choose from, there didn't appear to be any handy oil lakes where he was headed. The broken Vehicon was over one of the more intact looking areas of the derelict Autobot capital, ruined towers and shattered roadways. Alpha0075 tried to aim himself toward one of the clearer areas but there was almost nothing he could do to direct his fall. His flight-gyro struggled with every movement and the Vehicon trooper slid erratically backwards and forwards and side to side through the sky as he tried to stay vertical.

The two manoeuvring thrusters in his feet (or more precisely mounted near his ankles) had to be kept pointed straight down to keep alive the vague hope of slowing himself to some kind of survivable speed. He couldn't risk trying any radical course changes for fear of losing his precarious balance on the exhaust plumes struggling against gravity.

The battle seemed to be over at least, so nobody was shooting at him. Alpha0075 couldn't detect the Autobot anymore and the strange Seeker that had slaughtered his patrol was streaking away at high speed. Of his team-mates the Vehicon was almost positive that he could pick out three transponders in the confused mess his Tactical Network was feeding him, although if they would survive the next few cycles was anybody's guess. If there were any survivors they wouldn't be coming to his aid any time soon though, his own transponder was offline and he was pretty sure his transmitter had taken the brunt of that last Null Beam.

"**CRUNCH!**" Alpha0075's descent took him too close to one of the ruined skyscrapers and the Vehicon's erratic course sent him slamming into the side of the burnt out building, smashing backwards into it Alpha0075's wings crumpled like cardboard, crushed between his body and the massive metal wall. Then he bounced off and tumbled back out into open air.

And dropped like a stone.

At the very last, metres above the ground, Alpha0075 managed to get his feet under him and put every last erg of energy into his thrusters.

"FROMPF!" Finely powdered metal and silicate billowed up in a cloud. Even the massively reduced impact was too much for the Vehicon's already overstressed systems, but Alpha0075 had a moment to realise he'd survived his landing before darkness swallowed him.

_The shape of a city remained a ghost of what had once been. Here and there the shell of a building slightly more intact than those around it still stood. Massive structures of ceramic and alloy still showing hints of artistic line and grandiose architectural vision._

Vehicons bio-mechanical repair units were a wonder of compact design, light weight economical construction and fuel efficiency. Unfortunately they weren't that great when it came to actual repairs. They also had a tendency to overheat and short themselves out when overstressed.

That was the sensation Alpha0075's consciousness booted up to, his self repair module located in the small of his back spectacularly shorting out and sending a fresh wave of painful feedback and error messages flooding through his circuitry, across his neural net and into his CPU ... make that his secondary processor unit. His central processor was dead, had been since he'd been hit in the fuselage towards the end of the recent battle. He hadn't even noticed when it had gone. The Vehicon shuddered with horror, he was functioning on his very minimal backup which barely had enough processing power to allow his personality matrix to operate or his essential systems to run.

His internal chronometer showed that he had been offline for nearly five Orn's (1 Orn = 13 days)

His optical sensor had activated automatically when he booted up but Alpha0075 couldn't see a thing. His system diagnostic reported that his optics was one of the least damaged parts of his battered body. It took the Vehicon a moment to realise that he couldn't see because he was completely submerged in the powdery stuff he'd landed in. It was almost certainly why he still alive, not only had it cushioned his crash but it had smothered the burning Energon as well.

A simply analyse with the few sensors he still had functioning revelled the stuff to be the burnt and pulverised remains of dozens of alloys and building materials. Someone had hit whatever had stood on this spot with a massive amount of fire-power, reducing a heavily built building and its foundations to so much ash, soot and cinders.

The wounded Vehicon tried to take stock.

On the plus side he still had decent reserves of Energon. The patrol had been topped up with spare power packs for the mission and although he'd used a lot in the fight and lost a lot to his wounds the Vehicon still had enough to continue functioning for a few stellar cycle's.

On the downside his weapon systems were all totalled, even if he still had mountings for them he'd used up his stock of missiles, his right hand E-pistol had been wrecked in the first few astroseconds of the fight and his left hand weapon ... well that was probably wherever his left hand had ended up.

His central processing unit was, from what he could tell from the diagnostic returns, a complete loss. Transponder and transmitter were both gone and his receiver was operating at just thirty eight percent, plagued by cut power lines and damaged or destroyed peripherals. A lot of his long range sensors were either badly damaged or completely gone. His stealth systems both physical shielding and sensor countermeasures were massively degraded but still seemed at least partially effective. No doubt helped by the fact with so many of his systems gone or shut down he wasn't actually emitting anything close what a healthy mech would. Four of his main struts, three in his torso and one in his right leg had taken damage and his structural integrity was well below optimum.

His T-Cog had been damaged in the fight and further strained when he'd over-ridden the safeties and transformed to humanoid form despite the warnings. The bio-mechanical organ was slowly regenerating but using it would be a painful and best avoided experience for some time to come. Not that there would be much need, there was almost nothing left of Alpha0075's alt-mode's superstructure, he couldn't imagine much call to change into an Jet Fighter that had its wings and most of its propulsion systems ripped to shreds, most of its fuselage missing and no weapons. Unless he met someone who wanted a novelty doorstop or something his vehicle mode wasn't going to be a huge help.

Apart from all the major injuries his power distribution and circulation system had been cut to ribbons when shattered armour fragments had sliced into his internals. Energon, electrical, coolant and hydraulic systems had taken a beating with wires, pipes, tubes, vents, and hoses cut. Pumps, actuators, servos and valves had been damaged or destroyed. This was where Alpha0075's self repair system had spent most of its energies trying to restore some kind of working order before it had conked out, although probably the ash clogging everything up had done just as much or more to keep him alive. He'd lost a lot of precious fluids including Energon but apart from a few minor leaks that refused to stop, now seemed to be pretty secure. He wouldn't be doing any gymnastics or even walking very fast any time soon but the Vehicon decided he should be able to move around with some assurance his limbs would do what he told them to.

He was dismayed by the sheer number of wounds he'd taken but there didn't seem to be anything immediately life threatening and even if there was; staying here wasn't going to help.

Alpha0075 gathered himself and tried to sit up.

It didn't go to plan. Metal screeched and struts groaned as he forced himself up into a sitting position and something came loose with a "SPRONG!" behind his left shoulder. It felt disconcertingly like pieces were falling off his body.

By the time the Vehicon had struggled to his feet Alpha0075's vision was fading in and out as his overworked backup processor tried to cope with all the new error code by leeching capacity from other systems. The situation hadn't changed, he had to move, maybe find some tools to make some field repairs or even a CR chamber.

To do nothing would just be a slow suicide.

The ash was heavy and dense but Alpha0075 still had enough of his sensors operational to get some sense of which way led to less and which way led to more and took his first faltering steps towards less.

Moving was torture. Alpha0075 half swam, half borrowed and kind of stumbled though the mass of ash. The Vehicon was mortally certain he could feel the stuff passing through his exposed infrastructure.

The Vehicon felt very ... odd. His processor was struggling right at the edge of its abilities running hot. It was as if he'd gotten some really bad energon and it was messing with his perceptions and thought processes.

Alpha0075 was having a bad trip.

Thankfully after only a groon (1 hour) of agonizingly slow progress Alpha0075 felt the ground beneath his feat start sloping upwards.

When his head and optics finally broke the surface the Vehicon could have cheered! Alpha0075 pulled himself out of the ash pool, it involved a lot of clumsily failing around with only his right hand and the stump of his left. But he finally managed.

So this was Cybertron? The Vehicon had petabytes of data on the place and that was only the very basic packet Decepticon troopers received as orientation. He hadn't really expected the dark clouds high up in atmosphere, they hadn't been there for the aerial battle that he'd noticed but there were several warnings about acid rain in the archive so the place had to have a weather system of some sort. The ruined landscape however matched exactly with his expectations.

It was pretty bleak.

The ash pool stood at the centre of a swath of devastation, even more so than everywhere else. Whatever had reduced the central building so thoroughly had been powerful enough to level anything around it for Hics (1 Hic ≈ 1 Kilometre). Beyond that first circle of destruction more seemed to have survived, recognisable buildings with only the odd hole punched through them or a demolished side stood amongst the burnt out shells and collapsed piles.

One, shorter than most, maybe two or three stories tall, caught Alpha0075's attention. Maybe it seemed a little more intact than the others, maybe the path towards it looked a little easier, whatever. It could have been anything from a workshop to a library, it didn't matter, it gave the broken mech a goal and he started towards it.

One foot in front the other.

Alpha0075 had consciously avoided looking at himself since he'd climbed out of the ash but as he clambered over fallen rubble and twisted metal he couldn't help it.

Damn he was a mess! And not just figuratively.

Several pounds of silica and metallic ash had attached itself to his body during his burning dive into the pool. The stuff had welded and baked on as it smothered the flames. Where it mixed with liquid Energon, oil, hydraulic fluid and coolant it had formed a glutinous paste and laminated itself to him. Bizarrely in some odd and uncomfortable areas where his exposed systems had been arcing out it had even managed a crude form of electroplating. It was everywhere! Now that he knew it was there the Vehicon could swear he could feel it sloshing around in his deepest recesses, getting into his joints and clogging his servos.

Besides the ash it was pretty much like Alpha0075 had expected. Some better, some worse. A few tattered pieces of chest armour remained in place still attached to mounting hard points but most was long gone. Without the support of the front plates and its own damage the remains of the crushed superstructure on his back was falling apart as well. His left arm wasn't as bad as he'd feared, sure the hand was gone but it had been taken off nearly clean at wrist.

The worst was how exposed he felt with nothing covering his vitals.

He could actually see his spark chamber for Primus's sake! He could make out a shiny splash on its surface where something had glanced off its not terribly armoured housing, probably a piece of his own wafer thin armour when it had shattered during the battle.

How close had he come to joining the Allspark at that moment?

He was halfway to his chosen shelter now and the going was getting harder. More had survived this far away, the scattered debris was larger, forcing him to carefully climb over or go around obstacles. If he weren't so messed up he could have easily made it through in no time, but he didn't dare cause himself any more damage. He truly didn't think he could take any more.

His over stressed processor was giving him trouble dredging up random bits of memory and data from his memory banks and personality core. For a few cycles some of the others from his patrol walked with him, but he'd never had much to say to Sigma1361, Sigma1363 and Sigma1358 even when they'd been alive and they soon faded away.

As he walked and sometimes climbed making his way towards his goal the mark on his spark chamber gnawed at Alpha0075, that had been to close. Preventable as well, other flyers didn't suffer with the same delicate armour as the Vehicons. Both Starscream and Soundwave actually had slightly lighter frames, yet their armour could take multiple attacks the strength of the one that had all but gutted him.

Now he didn't ever have that meager protection.

It was about then that he came across the first corpse. Crushed under some collapsed wall leeched of colour in death with half his torso and his head smashed under the broken block of metal. It was impossible to tell if he had been a Decepticon or an Autobot.

"That must have hurt!" The sound of his own voice startled the Vehicon. It was the first sound he had heard besides the clangs and bangs of his own progress for what seemed like ages. It was kind of reassuring. "hehehehehehe! but then you are suffering from some pretty freaky processor overload Alpha Zero, Zero Seven Five! who knows what's passing for thought in that messed up cranial chamber of yours!"

By the time he stopped giggling Alpha0075 was well past the first body, but there had been plenty of others. Mostly big combat forms; tanks, mobile artillery, ground attack craft and weapons platforms of every design. But here and there some of them had taken robot form and died that way.

One of them looked just the Vehicon's size ...

It was a repugnant thought and it probably would never have occurred to Alpha0075 if he was thinking straight. But he wasn't and he was feeling very exposed with nothing covering his spark chamber.

The Mech or Bot, there was no sign of a faction coat of arms that the Vehicon could see, was propped up sitting back against one of the more intact bits of wall. He had been built on a slightly larger scale than the Vehicon, a little taller, broader, more mass in the arms and legs, but not by a huge margin. He'd had some kind of energy weapon mounted on his right forearm but there wasn't enough left of it for Alpha0075 to be sure exactly what it had been. His left leg was missing along with the lower part of his hip, it looked like he might have bleed out while he was trying to tie off one of his Energon channels.

His colours were faded to grey with death and his body had deteriorated under Cybertron's polluted atmosphere and odd bouts of acid rain. Not the torso armour though, although it was hardly pristine. It had taken a beating, saved its owner's life a dozen times probably from the marks Alpha0075 could find and categorise. It was burnt and blasted, scorched and blackened and had taken hits from neutron charges and proton strikes but it was still solid. There was even a small burn that looked like it might have been caused by a null ray hit if the Vehicon needed any more convincing.

He didn't.

With a thought Alpha0075 unlocked the hard points holding the remnants of his own torso plates in place and the few bits clinging to his front and back clattered loose, the only thing holding them to the Vehicon now were the dozens of energy feeds and control runs and gummed in ash. Normally there would have been hundreds of connections between internal structure and superstructure in such a vital area but there had already been so much damage a little more hardly seemed to matter. Alpha0075 carefully disconnected those he could reach, in a groon or two those would be used to interface with his new armour. But several were too awkward and hard to get the right angle on with only his right hand and had to be ripped away. Each one stung like a scaplet bite!, but it was soon over.

Next came separating the new armour from its previous owner. Alpha0075 flexed the three sharp clawed fingers on his remaining hand ... this was going to be messy. The armour was thicker than he's expected and had several built in modules that the Vehicon couldn't identify. That last wasn't surprising, everybody's superstructure had odd little widgets tucked away either for use in their alternative forms or to carry tools or weapons.

It was easier than he expected once he got started, most of the poor dead mech's infrastructure had decayed badly and it came free with little effort, some all but disintegrating in the Vehicon's hand, in a few cycles he'd cleared the armour. Connecting up his few remaining energon feeds and control interface lines was a fiddly, frustrating job to do one handed, but he stuck to it. The cuirass itself was a pretty simple design, not much in the way of flair, it kind of looked like a simplified version of Lord Megatron's really. Once Alpha0075 could see the insides without all the scorching on the outer surface he could tell that it was made of a off white, nearly grey alloy. Some form of Durabyllium/Tutonium cyber-metal maybe?

He was losing the light as the sun headed towards the horizon. He tried to hurry, he would still be able to see when the sun set even if his data-bank didn't tell him that Cybertron's moons provided some pretty decent lighting themselves most orbits his optical sensor may have been a bit basic but it was good enough for that. But he wanted to get this over with and back to his trek towards the building he'd chosen. Get out of the open.

Then Alpha0075 was easing the armour over his head struggling to keep the connecting cables clear and scrapping off more layered on ash. Most of his hard points didn't match up with the new piece of course he could only get three to engage properly no matter how he twisted and contorted his torso and shoulders, but he had expected that. Vehicons might be all of one pattern but it would be a very tall order to find many other Cybertronians that had any leanings towards standardization.

But there was a way around that, Cybertronian armour may in some configurations, such as this one, look like a single solid piece, but in reality it could be made of dozens or hundreds of individual interlocking parts. All depending on the design of the Alt-form and the configuration of the transformation. Alpha0075 needed to see what he was working with and for that he needed to power and activate the armour and bring online his T-Cog. His T-Cog that had retreated into protective lockdown from all the abuse it had suffered.

The Vehicon stood in the falling twilight next to the body he had desecrated. No point stopping now. Starting small he tried to switch his hand to gun mode.

"UrrrgH!" grinding and clicking madly his hand collapsed and retracted into his forearm. "Primus!" There wasn't much left of his E-Pistol, just a stump with a charred end and Alpha0075 quickly changed it back. Now for the fun bit. Concentrating he carefully started his main transformation sequence.

For anybody watching it would have looked like the Vehicon was having a fit, his body going into spasm's and throwing off a rain of ash like dandruff. Plates folded back or opened, his torso twisted around a hundred and eighty degrees on his hips and his arms and legs rotated and folded at odd angles. Then the whole gruelling process would reverse itself and start again. It sounded like bolts in a cement mixer that was chewing it's gearbox ... only with more screams of pain.

Then it was over, Alpha0075 knelt on the ground, dazed surrounded by flakes of all the crud the process had knocked loose and waited a few astroseconds to give his T-Cog and his overworked processor time to cool down. It had only lasted a cycle but it had felt a lot longer. Worth it though, examining his new armour he could see as well as feel that it was seated firmly to his internal structure now. A dozen hard points across his shoulders, down his sides and spread across his front and back holding it securely in place.

Climbing laboriously back to his feet Alpha0075 stretched moving a little more easily now. The partial reconfiguration seemed to have put him back together a little more sturdily. He didn't feel so much that he could fall apart at any sudden move or bump. A quick check showed that his repair circuits had rebooted and he hastily modified the control program so the system wouldn't go haywire again.

Time to get going and get under cover.

_Even if Iacon was no longer a city it still had plenty of citizens. This had been the last and possibly most bitterly fought battlefield on Cybertron and the dead numbered in their millions._

Alpha0075 eased himself through the last of the tumbled rubble and got his first good look at the goal he's been marching towards most of the day.

It was ... a building, medium sized squarish ground floor with a short rounded tower built up from its centre. It had taken damage near the top of the tower, a missile or a big energy cannon had blasted away a quarter of the domed cap leaving the wrecked higher levels exposed. The whole thing was covered in pockmarks from small arms fire and stained from the poisoned atmosphere. But it looked like the massive cybertronian construction had withstood the war and the dying world moderately well.

As the Vehicon walked forward he could make out doors and shutters here and there along the walls, locked up tight from all appearance. A few spots where it looked like someone had tried to get in and others showing mismatched repairs where maybe they'd succeeded.

Alpha0075 was really getting sick of walking, with his Jet form the trek here would have been trivial not a solar cycle's hard slog. The ground was littered with wreckage too degraded and worn to be identifiable.

The first corner revelled much the same and the second. He'd almost walked the perimeter before he found the main entrance, easily big enough to let through all but the largest Cybertronian. It took another groon to get in, the door had been maglocked but it had lost power centuries ago so brute force eventually pried it open far enough for the Vehicon to slip inside.

Alpha0075 was just looking around the entrance hall when things started happening.

Lights came on illuminating a long room sloping down probably to a underground reception.

The foot thick reinforced door came to life and closed with 'CRASH!' followed by a series of clunks as bolts engaged.

Three panels snapped open, two unfolding big nasty looking weapon turrets and the last a mobile scanner head flashing a Infrared beam that swept over the stunned Vehicon.

And a nearly hysterical sounding voice flooded the room from hidden speakers at volumes that would have deafened a human.

**"Declare yourself! Autobot or Decepticon!"** The two gun turrets both had the Autobot badge prominently displayed, it was an easy question to answer. "Autobot!, I'm an Autobot!" the red beam of the scanner passed over Alpha0075 again. Slowly taking its time while the Vehicon sweated lubricant. It stopped right in the middle of his chest. "What's the matter with you Bot! you should always keep your insignia bright, it's a point of pride!" Tentatively Alpha0075 touched the spot and rubbed at the blaster burns, slowly the faint outline of the Autobot brand became visible. huh?

"What's your name soldier?" The strident voice shocked the Vehicon out of his dumbfounded chest plate examination. His name? of course it would have to ask that! "Come on Bot, speak up!" He couldn't give it his Vehicon designation! Desperately he racked his cranial chamber for an answer, the Vehicon found himself staring at his hand, even after everything he still had some of the crud stuck in his joints, Unicron be damned "Ash! my name is Ash!"

"... you sure? you didn't look very certain there for an astrosecond."

"No, I'm certain! heh, of course I'm certain, sorry I've taken some damage, CPU's completely fried. I'm working on my backup system and sometimes things get a little er? stuck. My name is Ash."

Ash? he had a name? just like that? Right from the very first conditioning installation Vehicons knew to the core of their sparks that they wanted, needed! a name, that if they served long enough and well enough they might one day earn one.

And now he had.

His name was Ash.


	3. Chapter 3

Omake: This Snippet fits into Mizuki Stone's Cannonfodder straight after Entry 53. You can find Cannonfodder in the creative writing archive at Spacebattles dot com.

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**Megatron's Rage**

The Decpeticon's Lord and Master, Megatron and his two top Commanders, Soundwave and Airachnid watched on the Nemesis's view screen as the patchwork looking Autobot starship disappeared into FTL leaving the shattered remains of nearly a full legion of Decepticon Troopers in its wake.

"NO!" Megatron smashed his armoured fist into one the Nemesis's bridge's many control panels, shattering it into scrap. "Track them!"

"Lord Megatron!, we can't get a lock." A crew Mech at one of the sensor consoles reported, he was about to explain that the massive numbers of Neutron flares and Neutron beams mixed in with multiple exploding Mechs and debris from same had masked the enemy ship's departure, but found himself swatted across the giant room to pancake into the bulkhead wall and slipping offline for a nap instead.

Megatron flicked a speck of the unlucky Trooper's armour off of his fist "Soundwave take over, I want to know everything there is to know about what just happened."

The massive Decepticon turned to Airachnid as Soundwave silently obeyed him, taking control of the sensor station with one of his tentacles. "Airachnid" Megratron gritted his teeth, biting back the urge to order the miserable failures left to their fate, but he was before everything no fool and that would have been a fool's mistake. "Make arrangements to recover our fallen."

Airachnid suppressed the urge to make a snarky comment, she could see that Megatron was barely holding onto his temper as it was and as much pleasure as the Decepticon Femme found in twisting the knife in open wounds even she knew better than to try it on with Megatron when he was in this mood, especially while she was in range of the ex champion gladiators fists. She made sure to keep her voice as bland as possible as she saluted "At once Lord Megatron."


	4. Chapter 4

Omake: This Snippet fits into Mizuki Stone's Cannonfodder straight after Entry 61. You can find Cannonfodder's index at

threads/canonfodder-charge-of-the-lite-brigade.268 567/

Events of Cannonfodder went in a different direction so this is just for fun and Fowler fans.

**Home Improvement**

Special Agent William "Bill" Fowler grinned to himself as he set his Unit:E Spec Ops Helicopter down with just the tiniest of jolts. "Smooth."

It was a bright clean morning and Fowler was feeling pretty good as he climbed out of the cockpit and started sauntering towards the Warehouse where the US government had graciously allowed the Autobots to store their unexpected new spaceship. Sure he'd had a long day already and that was on top of a busy two weeks but he'd been in this line of work for a long time and he was used to odd hours.

He'd left Autobot Outpost Omega One, or as he liked to think of it 'the old missile silo', just a few hours ago and Optimus Prime was going to be caught up doing whatever it was giant robot alien commanders did for most of the day. So the Autobot leader wouldn't be able to use the Bot's Land-Bridge to get here until at least midday and Fowler was kind of amused that he, the lowly human liaison, would be getting a first-hand look at the Autobot's flashy new space ship before Optimius Prime had a chance to.

There's was no animosity in the thought, the Ex-Army Ranger genuinely liked and respected Optimus; but damn, the guy did take himself seriously.

The area was as remote as they come and thankfully still as deserted looking as it had been when he'd left it a little over a week ago, when he'd first scouted the old WWII Army Base as a possible hole to stuff the Autobot's new toy in.

The Base itself was long gone, closed before the Korean Conflict; the buildings demolished and the ground reforested to be added to a nearby National Park. But this compound, just a few acres; a big cavernous warehouse, a guard post and a little mess come barracks building along with a helipad, a four metre tall double link fence and lots and lots of overgrown lawn had stayed in use right up until the end of the Cold War when budget cuts had caught up with it.

Fowler slowed as he came up to one of the Warehouse's side doors and frowned. When he'd last been here, this door, the closest to the helipad, had hung lose in it's frame allowing someone on the outside to glimpse the interior of the building through the gaps around it's edges. Now it was tight and as the Unit:E Special Agent got closer, just didn't look quite right.

The door still had the same stains and peeling paint, but as he reached out cautiously to touch the suddenly suspicious building he realized it only looked the same the marks were painted on? Somebody had replaced the falling down weathered door Fowler had seen a week ago. tink! tink! Fowler tapped it gently with a finger tip; made a new one out of some kind of metal, then camouflaged it to look like it was still the same.

"Well, I'll be a Bald Eagle! " The Autobots had only moved in a week ago!

The hairs on the back of his neck standing on end Fowler tried the handle and wasn't surprised when he couldn't even rattle it. There was one of those old cream coloured boxy looking intercom's next to the door and he tapped the call button.

"Hello?" Fowlers already raised eyebrows tried to take up mountaineering as he recognised the voice coming from the speaker.

"June?" June Darby?

"Bill! Hello, just let me open the door, we saw you land on the monitor and I've sent Jack to show you in." The woman sounded calm and cheerful.

"What are you doing here June?" How? Why?

"Just watching the kids Bill."

"What in Sam Hill's name are the kids doing" WHOOSH The faux normal door slid aside like something out of Star Trek cutting the Unit:E Special Agent off mid question.

"Hi Agent Fowler." Jack Darby grinned at the big man's dumbstruck expression.

"Washington's Holy Whig!" The teenager just grinned wider as Fowler looked past him into a cosy little waiting room type set up, complete with uncomfortable looking metal seats.

"Isn't it great? I didn't even know the Bots had finished this bit." Jack waved a vague hand indicating everything around them; the waiting room, the door, even the walls, which Fowler spotted weren't trying nearly as hard as the door to pretend they weren't metal.

"This bit?" Fowler prided himself on taking all the the giant alien robot/vehicles weirdness if not in stride; then at least with a little dignity, but he could feel himself gaping like a freshly caught fish.

"Yeah, they've been mostly working underground for the last few days and Mom keeps us in the Control Room. I've only seen a few of the DRD's over here."

"DRDs?" But Fowler was asking the teenager's back as the boy headed for the room's other door. Fowler was forced to follow with his question unanswered.

Jack led Fowler through the door and out into the warehouse's main area.

Bill had seen a wire-frame image of the Galactica projected on the Autobots big screen but up close like this and in the person, it was on a different level of impressive. Even if it did have a rather mix and match look to it. But any awe he would have felt at the sight of the big functional looking spaceship was completely short-circuited by the warehouse itself.

When he'd been here a week ago it had looked exactly like it was supposed too, a run-down but still serviceable building. Concrete floor, corrugated iron and wood walls and ceiling, plus a few little nooks and crannies for offices and facilities.

Now? Now it was different.

The walls, the ceiling, even the floor! They had all been replaced with the slightly golden tinged alloy the Autobots seemed to favour for their stuff. High up projecting from one wall was a Autobot scale control room looking out over the . . . the Warehouse? the Starship dock? Inside through a transparent wall Fowler could vaguely make out human scale forms moving around.

"How in the name of Jefferson's coat-tails did they do all this?" Fowler demanded.

"It's amazing isn't it?" Jack answered. "I mean I knew the Bots were ... well Machines' I guess, kind of. But I never really thought about how much they could do, you know? How much work they can do. It's pretty awesome what they can accomplish once they get going!"

"Huh?" Fowler was still dazedly taking in all the changes. At the far end of the giant room, opposite the big doors at the other end of the Galactica, there was a Cybertronian scale structure looking half completed, with cranes? hanging over it cables disappearing into the roof, or ceiling, or whatever you called the top of a building that was inside another building.

"Well Bulkhead says it started when they figured the floor was no good." Jack started to explain to the shocked Special Agent.

"The floor? what was wrong with the floor?" It had looked ok a week ago and the building had all its inspections up to date.

"Bulkhead is the MASTER of CONSTRUCTION WooHoo!" Miko's voice (forever etched into the memory of anybody who had ever met her) screamed out, echoing off all the metal surfaces around the room.

Fowler spotted the girl just in time to dodge out of her path, pulling Jack to safety as he went, as she darted out from behind one the ships massive landing pads and barrelled through riding a Kick scooter.

Jack took his nearly being run over in stride, hardly taking a breath before he continued his explanation. "Yeah the floor, or maybe it was the foundation? anyway whatever, it wouldn't have been able to take the Galactica sitting on it for long. It would have cracked or shifted or something and eventually brought the whole building down."

"So Salvage had to call in the BIG METAL MUSCLES!" Miko had circled round and stepped off her ride to stand next to Jack.

Jack nodded. "They were just going to reinforce the floor to take the weight." Starting forward again Miko at his side, Fowler brought up the rear trying to get a handle on what he was being told.

"Were." Fowler looked around. "It doesn't look like they were happy with that plan."

"Well Wheeljack said." Jack started.

"Did you know that Wheeljack, as well as being nearly as tough as Bulkhead, is also a Genius Engineer?" Miko broke in.

"Wheeljack said." Jack tried again, a little louder."That if they were going to start remodelling they might a well do it right the first time."

"So the three of them; Bulkhead, Wheeljack and the new guy, Salvage? did all this, in a week?"

"Pretty much." Miko said.

"Well, not just them." Jack answered at the same time.

"You kids help out a lot did you?" Fowler asked looking from one scrawny teen to the other; earning a scowl from the Japanese exchange student.

"Not us, Kup and Lickety were around in the beginning and Bumblebee and Arcee have stopped by a few times, when Optimus didn't need them. And there was a lot of stuff in the Galactica they used." Jack tried to explain.

"Plus Salvage's DRD's" Miko threw in. "Once he got the factory on the Galactica making new ones, there were a lot!"

"DRD's?" Fowler remembered Jack had said something about them before, when the kid was talking about the entranceway being finished.

"Yeah, they're these little flying robot things, they cut and weld and carry stuff around and ... well everything really, even build stuff if its not to complex. This place was full of them until a little while ago. I guess they are all underground with the Bots now." Miko threw over her shoulder as she suddenly ran forward jumping back on her scooter and disappeared through the Autobot sized door at the foot of the Control Room.

Fowler blinked and felt like smacking his head against one of the gleaming metal walls. Sweet Lady Liberty!, he'd walked straight under the alien space ship and barely noticed. He'd been distracted by ... "Wait! Underground! You said that before, what do you mean underground?"

Jack pointed to the half finished construction that Fowler had spotted earlier, which from this angle looked a lot like the frame of the same type of elevator that the Bots had installed in the missile silo base. Except this one when finished would be at least twice the size. "Well they had to test the ground a lot, sonar and penetrating radar and who knows what else and it turns out that up that end of the building a few metres down its all solid rock, all the way down to bedrock and there are some ores Bulkhead said looked promising so they started tunnelling down." The teenager shrugged. "Salvage and Wheeljack are both pretty happy about all the room they'll have when they finish."

Fowler looked around him trying to imagine how much work it must have taken to transform the warehouse he'd first seen into this and how long it would have taken a human work crew to accomplish it. "Uncle Sam's Magnificent Beard." he swore softly under his breath.


End file.
